Historically, cigars have been manufactured by assembling a center cigar filler in an attitude of elongated tubes. The center cigar filler was then wrapped by hand in a wrapper leaf. Increasing costs of manual labor have forced cigar manufacturers to adopt machine manufacturing methods.
A conventional cigar manufacturing machine employs means which assemble the center filler of the cigar. A wrapper leaf is cut to a prescribed size and aged under controlled temperature and humidity conditions. After aging, the leaf is glued and wrapped around the center filler. A conventional wrapping machine is employed to wrap the leaves around the center filler.
Of particular importance to this method of making cigars, is that a carrier strip which is non-toxic, inert and which has a non-adherent surface is used. The non-adherent surface is particularly important since after the wrapper leaf is cut to size it is placed on the carrier strip and the leaf and carrier strip are rolled on to a spool. The spool is stored for a predetermined time under controlled temperature and humidity conditions for proper aging of the wrapper leaf. Thus, it is particularly important after storage on the film that the wrapper leaf quickly and easily release from the carrier film at the proper time.
One obvious choice for use in such a carrier film is tetrafluoroethylene fluorocarbon polymers or fluorinated ethylenepropylene resins which are manufactured by E. I. duPont deNemours & Co. under the name Teflon. However, Teflon is not acceptable to the Food and Drug Administration in this type of application. Therefore, a different material must be employed for this specialized carrier film.
What is needed then, is a carrier film composed of a material which is inert, non-toxic, non-adherent, meets pure food standards and which may easily be formed into elongated carrier strips. The material should also be economical to use and should be re-useable.